What do you plan to accomplish today?

I enjoy lists. They are easy to read and easy to check off. Lists can serve many fruitful purposes. I use them to rank things and events, even people. Lists can be great tools for memory and recording. Some of my most enjoyable records are memory lists. My eye is more able quickly to comprehend lists than paragraphs. Paragraphs certainly have their place, but many times I value the list organizational writing device more so than the paragraph. Why are grammar teachers not more inclined to teach us how properly to use lists than paragraphs? So much of our instructional world (consider building instructions on new products) utilizes lists for the reasons I have given.

Perhaps our lives would be more productive, more satisfying, more easily graded, and more reflectively beautiful if we employed lists in our daily lives. For instance, why not start each day with a list of goals? Desires? Hopes?

Here is my list of what I hope to accomplish, 17th November, 2019:

1. Pray for all of the users on Tigerdroppings, that they will see the light of God and know God's love for them.

2. Attend church with a clean spirit and a humble heart, listening for what I am being called to do today and open to change my ways to serve more faithfully.

3. Begin writing rules for the Louisiana Competitive Christmas Decorating League

4. Decorate for my apartment and for the two invalid neighbors who asked me to wrap with lights their eight large live oak trees.

5. Take out a frozen turkey and begin to defrost it. The 22 pounder will probably take five or six days to defrost.

6. Decide if the $482 for National Flood Insurance is worth it for a family property. I have been debating this in my mind for weeks. I need a decision today.

7. Prepare my outfits for the entire week.

8. Write a letter to Walmart asking them to include more overtly Christian themes in Christmas decorations next year and inquiring why their 32 oz chicken broth is cheaper by weight than the 48 oz, as well as similar pricing structures for their Great Value brand cereals.

9. Take time during the business of the day to breathe in the beauty of this time and place. Today I will dwell and contemplate Psalm 19: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

10. Create lists of things to do, critique, and appreciate for the next 24 hours.


Dear friends, what is it you hope and plan to accomplish today?